One week after accepting a promotion, the general manager of the Toyota manufacturing plant in Cambridge was killed in a snowmobile crash in northern Ontario.
Almaguin Highlands OPP say a snowmobile belonging to Herb Bishop crashed into a tree on a groomed trail around 9:45 a.m. Sunday, killing the 56-year-old.
It happened on a trail in McMurrich/Monteith Township, northwest of Huntsville and east of Parry Sound.
Speed is believed to be a factor in the crash.
Bishop had been with Toyota Canada since 1988 and was one of its top Canadian executives.
Last week, he was promoted to a new position in British Columbia, and was planning to visit Vancouver with his wife next weekend to get a better sense of his new home.
“His wife is his best friend. They ride together. They hang out together,” Ray Tanguay, chair of Toyota’s Canadian operations, tells CTV News.
“He will be missed by his family. He will be missed by the Toyota family. He is a very special person, and we’re devastated by his loss.”
Bishop lived in Paris and had three children, two of whom also work at Toyota, and two grandchildren.
Friends say he was an avid snowmobilers who knew the trails in the area of his crash – near his Burk’s Falls cottage – and wasn’t one to snowmobile unsafely.
A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at the Dwayne Budgell Funeral Home in Paris.
